"The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, allows South African research scientists from the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria to analyze twenty-four pipe fragments found on the grounds of William Shakespeare's home. The findings, published in the South African Journal of Science, show that eight of the pipes tested contain traces of cannabis and two of the pipes contain traces of cocaine. Others appear to be laced with tobacco, camphor, and hallucinogenic nutmeg extracts high in myristic acid." 5 Mar 2001...

... Sonnet 76 ... contains Shakespeare's references to a 'noted weed' and 'compounds strange' -- 'compound' known as early as 1530 to mean a substance formed by a chemical union of two or more ingredients:

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,So far from variation or quick change?Why with the time do I not glance asideTo new-found methods and to compounds strange?Why write I still all one, ever the same,And keep invention in a noted weed,That every word doth almost tell my name,Showing their birth and where they did proceed?